About Maker’s Loft

Maker’s Loft has established itself for the last 2 years as a community event space and workshop hub. Starting on February 1st, Oakland’s First Friday, Maker’s Loft will opens its doors to the public 7 days a week as a retail store carrying handmade products from local makers while still offering workshop classes throughout the week.

Our mission with this space is to build meaningful connections between the maker and the consumer. We provide a space for makers to share/sell their products and grow their audience. We welcome our community in for a unique shopping experience where they will also learn about the maker and how their products were made.

MEET THE Owners

Rachelle Blaisdell

A Bay Area native, artist and entrepreneur. Generations of her family living working and living in Oakland goes back to her great grandmother on her mother's side. For her, it’s a dream come true to own a business on the same street as the Oakland Tribune Tower, where her father worked his first job as a paperboy.

After investing eleven years of her life to her patience in the dental field, Rachelle left to pursue her art and began featuring her paintings at Oakland’s First Fridays, Art and Soul Festival, and many shows around the Bay Area. Those experiences ignited the desire to share the opportunity to create art with others by starting a mobile paint party company. Rachelle started her first company, Art Beat Events out of the trunk of her car and would pop-up at local bars, restaurants and corporate events.

In November 2016, four years after starting Art Beat Events she opened her own space in downtown Oakland, naming it Maker’s Loft. Over the past two years Maker’s Loft has been a gallery, workshop, pop-up shop, and event space dedicated to exhibiting local artists and inspiring creativity in our community. Through partnerships with Bay Area event companies, creative groups, and individual artist, she has dedicated her time to help illuminate the depths of expression within our neighborhoods, foster diversity, circulate the local dollar, and live out her goals.

XELA GAERLAN

A wardrobe stylist, tailor and designer based in Oakland, CA. Her love for fashion is rooted deep from her childhood. As a first generation immigrant growing up in America she discovered her love for fashion through thrift shopping. Her family, for extra cash, would shop for vintage 501 Levi's jeans in thrift stores and resell them to buyers in Japan. She spent many weekends at various thrift stores in various cities and she was exposed to all different types of clothing and styles! Through this, she developed her own sense of style at an early age and expressed her creativity through style. It was her freshman year of high school when she learned how to use her mother’s sewing machine, customizing her entire wardrobe making all the kids in school jealous (lol). After high school she studied Product Development at FIDM and Fashion Design at Art Institute of California.

After college she went right into the workforce, working for fashion manufacturing companies in San Francisco. Working in production & design departments then into brand marketing & styling. Within the 5 years of working in this fast-fashion industry she saw first hand how horrible this industry really was and realized this was not the world she wanted to be a part of. She was investing so much of her time in a business that did not align with her values. During this time, as a side hustle she would do alterations for friends and upcycle clothes to resell them, this was what actually brought joy to her life - helping people connect with their wardrobe and saving clothes from going to the landfill. So in 2017 she quit her 9-to-5 to pursue her side hustle full time. Now she joined forces with Rachelle to open Maker’s Loft Boutique and inside the shop she’ll be providing her tailoring and alteration services to the public.